Three years without you
by zentry
Summary: To lose a loved one is hard, and to recover from this could take more than a couple of years. ATF.
1. anniversary

**Disclaimer: **They are not mine. I don't make profit from these.

ATF universe belongs to Mog. Thanks to Laura, Linda and to Angela B. for checking this.

*M7*

I didn't wanted to get up today.

It took all my will to go to work and face the world. But I had to quit early, JD and Vin's jokes, Ezra's chattering, even Nathan full of concerned glances were making me crazy.

Thank God my oldest friend has been too busy to notice my antics.

I can't help it because, today is your anniversary. Three years without you.

I thought the pain would never pass. I was right in a way, they were right in another. The pain will not disappear, but life did go on.

I find myself thinking not so often about you, two or three times a week, when before there was not a minute without you in my mind. What would you say, what would you do, your eyes, your smile.

Now your image is fading, and I have no way to keep it from disappearing. I don't have a picture, a memento, nothing. I gave up all of those a long time ago. Now I regret not having them.

My memory is losing you too and this is leaving a hole, deep in my heart. A hole that will never heal entirely, that not even the team, my new family, can seal.

Don't get me wrong, they have helped me a lot. When I feel like I'm drowning they keep my head above the water, just by being around.

What a strange group we make, all of us so different from each other. Yet, I got myself a younger brother. He doesn't know but many times he's had to drag me to shore and save me from drowning in my self-pity. He knows what it is to be alone, too, the loss of a special one.

He is nothing like you…and too alike. Fighters, stubborn, so fearless…that make me look overprotective because I'm afraid to lose him, like I lose all I love.

I loved you.

I have told myself it wasn't mean to be, never was. Call it destiny or fate.

In my mind I know that it wasn't my fault, nevertheless I felt guilty for a couple of years. I felt responsible for what happened, guilty for not being able to keep you from harm, guilty of loving you and never saying it out loud.

How could I?

You chose Chris and Chris chose you.

I was glad, for both of you.

Never less I wept at the irony of discovering that your true love not just tolerated or liked your best friend, but was in love with him.

I stayed near to be sure he treated you right. Sometimes I wanted to hit him for making you worry unnecessarily. I would whack his head and made him apologize.

As incredible as it sounds, I was never really jealous of your connection with each other, a pairing made in heaven I said. You were happy, so I was happy. Until the day we lost you.

What would have happened if you were still around? I'm not sure of a lot of things in this life, but of this I am: The team, the _magnificent seven_, would not exist.

Was it planned then, by a higher power that you had to die so the seven could get together?

When a priest told me that everything happens for a reason I couldn't find a good one for losing a brave, young, beautiful, loving woman and her small and innocent son.

Then, after Chris got us together and Josiah mentioned it was our destiny, I started considering it.

You couldn't be around for this to work.

If you had still been here, Chris wouldn't have accepted the job, too much danger.

He was already looking for a promotion, a desk job, knowing that he hated paperwork, politics and the social requirements that that kind of job demands. Still, he was going to do it for you and for Adam.

Something he would never do for anybody else, surely not for Mary.

He knows that, and maybe that's why he hasn't formalized his relationship with her.

I haven't made up my mind about that, Mary and Chris together. No doubt it would be good for Billy, but Mary doesn't have a chance against you. Or so I thought, until I saw them together.

Chris appears to be getting over his grief, which makes me a little resentful.

Couldn't there have been another way? I had to lose you, too?

I envied the opportunities Chris had, first to love you, then to mourn you, now to overcome his loss. Maybe the way he grieved helped. The possibility of losing himself in the feeling, to go to your grave and shout and scream, to get drunk and cry, to get angry and blame everything and everybody...

While I had to bottle up all those feelings to help him, I had to restrain myself and wait until I was in control of my emotions.

Couldn't tell Chris that I hurt as much as him.

That I miss you, too, that you were as necessary to me as the air I breathe, that I haven't found relief for this passion, this emotion inside me, that I want to cry and scream and get drunk and blame the entire world, because I have to live without you.

That I just wanted you to know that I loved you.

That it's been three years since you left us and I love you still.

*tbc?*

Reviews are welcome (be kind, I'm still learning English)


	2. my best friend s wedding

(for the disclaimer, go to the first chapter)

*M7*

Here I am, at the church, all dressed up and dying inside.

I try to hide in the shadows; it is my best friend's wedding.

*

I didn't want to come. I made excuses about having to be somewhere else today, but still ended up here.

I had to be.

We have lived through a lot of things, my friend and I. We survived our youth together, the navy, the streets, the pain, the loss...

*

I'm not the best man this time.

Today, Vin Tanner is standing at Chris side.

*

Instead of being near the altar, I'm at the back of the big room.

Thinking.

Remembering.

Alone.

*

It was hard when Chris and Mary started dating. I spend a lot of time punching a boxing-bag, releasing my anger. It hurt... still does.

Just three years and Chris forgot about Sarah?

I couldn't believe it, the man had wanted to die after losing her and Adam, and just three years later he's marrying another woman.

Was it all a lie?

Didn't he love her as he said?

How could he forget so soon... and I can't?

*

Sarah, please help me, I don't want to cry in front of all these people. Nobody should see how much I still hurt... I can't let it show.

*

I arrived at the church alone. I sit in the shadows as far from the team as I can, and think.

All this time I have been talking with Sarah, in my mind and in my heart.

Chris looks happy. Are you happy too, Sarah?

Mary hasn't stopped grinning and sending kisses to Billy... I remember you smiled a lot at your wedding too, but it was a sad smile, because your father wasn't there.

Vin looks nervous. I was nervous at your wedding too. For a moment I wished Chris would back down and I would have taken his place.

Chris is saying his vows. His voice is strong and steady. Not like that time.

Have you given your blessing to the couple near the priest, Sarah? Or are your tears running free, like mine.

I can't help it.

*

Am I jealous because he's happy?

Because he got over his grief and is starting a new life?

Or it is because I'm not part of his life anymore?

I'm not the best friend, just the oldest; I'm not the best man, just a simple guest. I will not be a godfather, just another "uncle"...

Could it be?

*

No, I think it's because I lost my family at the same time he lost his, I lost the woman I loved and I could never tell her...

That time it was enough that she was happy.

At least, this time, I'm not in love with the bride.

*

Everybody is leaving...I'm not.

They are having a big, fancy reception, with lots of guests, ATF agents and VIP´s.

I already explained that I had a very important date I couldn't cancel.

I had to stand the team glares at that, the disappointment in Vin and Josiah's eyes, the confusion in JD's, the reproach in Chris', and Nathan's comments about my egoistical life...

Then I saw pity in Ezra's eyes.

After that I avoided the team as much as I could.

*

I look around and the church is empty.

I leave as I came, alone.

I walk to my truck that is parked at the back of the old building.

I have a bag with clothes in the passenger seat.

I'm planning to stay at the cemetery all the time the guards will let me; I need to be close to Sarah and Adam today... Then crash somewhere, but not at home.

Time alone is what I want, what I need.

Because come Monday I will smile and pretend that all is right in the world.

I will joke and play with my teammates; I'll be like the clown that makes all those who see him happy.

Even if the clown can't do anything but cry when he's alone.

I'll be the Buck that everybody expects, even if I have been dying inside for more than three years.

***tbc?***

**please review**


	3. and now this

Thanks to Mary who was brave enough to beta this.

For the disclaimer, see the chapter 1

*M7*

I feel numb.

There's no anger any more. I have accepted that Chris and Mary are meant to be, like the team. But still, I've been avoiding the guys outside the job.

There haven't been "team weekends" for a while, for obvious reasons since the couple is still at the honeymoon period.

I have been at the ranch just two times in the last 3 months and both times I stayed only a few minutes.

I couldn´t stay any longer or I´d have started feeling again.

*

I wanted to stay numb.

*

Until now. The Larabees are expecting.

The Larabees. I never thought of Sarah and Chris that way, as if they were strangers, a couple I met at a party or something like that.

Now Mary is the wife, the one with child, and for me they are now "the Larabees".

*

Last time Sarah was so happy that I had no choice but to be happy too.

Last time Chris and I would go in search of bizarre food at midnight for her.

Last time my best friend was so nervous that I was ready to knock him off so Sarah could relax.

*

Now Mary is the one with the cravings, the one that needs to relax, but this time Chris is not so nervous. Maybe he's not even so happy.

*

I can´t believe that I´m so bitter. "Of course he´s happy", I say to myself.

"It´s just not the same as the first time because... because it's not the first time. For either of them."

So now Chris is going for the food-runs alone. Or maybe this time he´ll call Vin for help.

*

Oh, Sarah. You must hate me. You trusted that I´d always be at Chris's side helping him. And I have been so selfish.

You would be happy for him. Adam would be ecstatic about a new baby at the ranch.

It´s just that, we are not so close any more. I can´t see me at his side the first time he holds the baby in his arms, or when they take the baby to be baptized.

This time the privilege is going to be Vin´s. It has to be that way; because he deserves it.

*

And I don´t.

*

I thought that I had become numb.

How wrong I was!

What I have become is resentful. I have been egotistical and self-centered. I have hated Chris for overcoming his grief and going on with his life.

I have gotten stuck in my misery and wanted Chris to be stuck too; after I tried so hard, for so long, to help him get past the grief, now, when he finally is living again...

*

I don't know what to do.

I´m so confused that now Ezra has taken notice. I think he has known for a while, but like me, he doesn´t know what to do.

Lately he has stayed around J.D.

They have been watching me for a while. They are worried.

*

I´m worried too.

***tbc?***

A/N: Sorry I´m stuck at this stage, probably in a couple of months I´ll have more feelings to "project" and continue this. Right now I´m feeling kind of numb myself.


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